


ENT's Dream . * 




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THE 



STUDENT'S DREAM 



lO 



il/Lnjvy\'\ ., 



PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 



CHICAGO. 
JaNSEN^ yVlcpLURG ^ pOMPANY. 

I APR 9 1881 , 



'<^'' 

^^^s 



TBS LiBRAllY 
or CONGEEtS 

WASBlllGTOll 



JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY, 
A. D. 1881. 



A Horoscope of Mental Growth 

Contai:ning a Metaphysical 

Discovery. 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 



DuEiNG the past summer, a student 
from one of our Eastern Colleges visited 
tlie Catskill Mountains. While wander- 
ing through the famed ^' Sleepy Hollow" 
region he stopped to rest, and falling 
asleep, the faint states of his consciousness 
described the followins: dream. :- 

He dreamt that he slept for fifty years, 

and awakening, found that heliad neither 

advanced in age nor wisdom. Kealizing 

that the scenes of his former days would 

(5) 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 7 

be strange to Lira, and that liis friends 
liad changed or gone, he determined to 
take up the thread of his career in a new 
country. 

He reasoned that the tide of knowledge 
took its course from East to West, and that 
if he were to travel in the same direction 
he might readjust himself to the mental 
world. With this purpose in view he 
boarded a western bound train, relying 
upon bis intuitions as to the place at 
which he would stop. 

As the States of New^ Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania and Ohio passed beneath his feet, 
he began to regain confidence; and feel- 
ing that he had crossed a sufficient num- 
ber of meridians of longitude to re-adjust 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 9 

those intellectual relations with society 
which time had reversed, he alighted in 
a small town in Indiana. 

In considering the manner in which he 
could best serve the community, and gain 
a livelihood, he hit upon the plan of real- 
izing a constant ambition of his youth, 
and decided to establish himself as a Doc- 
tor of Philosophy, 

Without loss of time he had a modest 
sign inscribed : 

H 



HERBERT SPENCER JONES, 
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY. 

^ n 

and securing an appropriate office on the 
B 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 11 

principal thoroughfare, he betook him- 
self to forming those powerful generali- 
zations which have always distinguished 
the members of his newly adopted pro- 
fession. 

While thus engaged, an agriculturist 
presented himself at the door, with the 
remark, that he had observed the sign 
and made up his mind that the Doctor 
was just the man he was looking for. 

•'Ah ! " said the Doctor ; *'come in, sir ; 
won't you be seated?" 

The farmer accepted the invitation, and 
the following conversation ensued : 

*' Pray, sir, what is the nature of your 
difficulty?" 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 13 

'' Well, I want you to tell me how large 
this Universe is, and how long it is going 
to last ; how old it is ; where it got the 
capital to start business with, and what 
it is going to do when it gets through bu- 
siness. Now, don't tell me it had no 
capital to start with, because then we will 
only disagree on the meaning of words. 
The material on hand I call capital. 
Now where did this capital come from, 
and about how much did it start with? " 

"Are there many people in your neigh- 
borhood troubled with this same difficul- 
ty?" 

" No ; not many. Most of them have 
their minds all settled on these questions, 
but I got left a little on education. That 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 15 

is, I did not go to school niueli. Had to 
pick up as I could what I know." 

^' You mean, then, that your neighbors 
in the country have, as a rule, passed 
through the sphere of thought in which 
you are at present involved, and that al- 
most any one in your section is able to 
answer the questions which you have just 
propounded?" 

^' Oh my, yes ! but you see the Squire 
tells me that I haven't the mental struc- 
ture necessary to comprehend the current 
Theory of the Universe, ^Jid that's why 
I'm so mixed." 

"Who is the 'Squire?'" 

" Oh, he's what they call the best man 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 17 

in our Metaphysic Bee. There's lots of 
men in the towns know more than he does ; 
but he's pretty well up, they say. He 
reads the books and papers, and keeps 
posted.'' 

'' What did you say just now ? * Ileta- 
physic Bee, ' — what's that?" 

'' Why, that's our ^Bee.' They say, in 
olden times, wlien people had less mind, 
they used to have spelling-schools and 
debating societies. Now some folks say 
this name is old, and want to call it ^ The 
Society for the promotion of Definite Cul- 
ture."'' 

" What do you do in this Bee?" 

^'Oh ! /don't say anything. They say 

c 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 19 

my questions were settled long ago, and I 
must study before speaking. There is a 
German there calls himself a 'Kantist/ 
but they say he is very much off. Then 
there's an old maid, who calls herself a 
follower of * Spencer.' Some one told her, 
the other night, that she might follow 
SjDencer, but she could not lead that so- 
ciety until she showed some sympathy 
with modern ideas. By the way, you are 
a 'Spencer;' was he any relation of 
yours?" 

'^ jNTo : my father recognized him as one 
of the intellectual giants of his time, and 
named me after him." 

^'Well, the Squire says Spencer came 
very near the truth. That he established 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 21 

the doctrine of evolution firmly among 
the peojDle, and gave them a frame- work 
of thought to which all new discoveries 
seem to belong. And now, instead of 
truth disturbing the people, it is received 
with hospitality and applause." 

"I could say all that, and much more 
of Spencer, but your case does not per- 
mit the digression. Now, tell me what 
they call 'the current theory of the Uni- 
verse ' among your people. What do they 
call modern ideas? Does not your old 
maid friend defend Spencer's position suc- 
cessfully?" 

''Ah ! I perceive your method of teach- 
ing. You are trying to draw me out, and 



THE STUDENT'S DEE AM. 23 

then you are going to show me how to 
23ut the materials I have together. The 
Squire has often tried this ; in fact, they 
have all tried it, but they say I am a hard 
case. Since you make a business of phi- 
losophy, however, you may have better 
success." 

" Well, answer as concisely as you can 
the questions just asked you." 

" I can repeat what I have heard. The 
Kantist told me when I asked him the 
same questions I asked you about the 
beginning and end of things, that in order 
to answer such questions, it would be nec- 
essary to comprehend the meaning of 
Space and Time. And that as these 
words represent states of mind only and 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 25 

not anything that exists outside of tlie 
mind, it is like trying to lift the cliair 
you sit in to comprehend them. Miss 
W. says, under the authority of Spen- 
cer, that Space and Time are not 
states of the mind, but external realities. 
But, as Space is infinite or unlimited, 
and the mind limited, and as Time is ab- 
solute or unconditioned, and the mind 
conditioned, we cannot form a definite 
conception of either. That the nearest 
we can come to understanding them is 
that we have a vao;ue consciousness of 
these great realities. Then she goes on to 
say that the ^ deepest knowable cause ' 
is ^ the persistence of force,' and that we 

cannot penetrate any farther than this 
D 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 27 

toward a comprehension of the beginning 
of phenomena. " 

'' Do not these explanations satisfy 
you ? They are certainly very lucid." 

"What, lucid! A yague consciousness 
of Space and Time ; the persistence of 
force, kicid ? No, sir! I want the thing 
itself; no make-shifts for me." 

" Well! you are certainly rather exact- 
ing in such matters, for a faraier." 

" ISTo. They call me stupid and obsti- 
nate down at the society ; at least, they 
mean as much, as you will see by a letter 
the 'Squire wrote me the other day. 
Here it is." 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 29 

The Doctor opened the letter, and read 
as follows : 

Dear Mr. B: 

Upon thinking over what happened the 
other evening at our society, I feel com- 
pelled, as its president, to make you some 
apology. 

There is something touching in the ear- 
nestness and constancy with which you 
propound your standard questions regard- 
ing the begining and end of things; but 
there is also something provoking in your 
steady failure to entertain the solutions of 
these questions which have been so con- 
sistently offered you. Will you ever 
learn., that the words beginning and end 
do not represent ultimate realities, but 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 31 

simply relations^ which have for their 
terms other relations? They cannot be 
used in the absolute sense, since they 
are relative in their nature. 

In a word, there is no absolute begin- 
ning or end, and you have no right to 
insist that there is. 

This is why our society does not j^er- 
mit you to debate, for they insist that 
their time cannot be justly taken up by 
one who either lacks the ability or indus- 
try to master his primer in metaphysics. 

You have had too many proofs of my 
friendship to mistake this well-meant and 
necessary severity for unkindness. 

You may not be to blame for your 
faikire to construct a rational theory of 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 33 

the Universe, although I must say, that I 
have never known a case in which an in- 
dividual in your position could hold his 
ancestors entirely responsible for his mis- 
fortune. 

If you would patiently accumulate 
knowledge and thus form a mental struc- 
ture capable of apprehending some of the 
cardinal truths which all phenomena are 
constantly forcing upon us, theli, with the 
aid of those who are better trained in 
making generalizations, you would soon 
be enabled to establish some harmony be- 
tween your consciousness and those ulti- 
mate truths which you so impotently 
reach after. 

It would then be less painful and futile 
E 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 35 

to talk to YOU ; and then, and not until 
then, can your best friends help regarding 
you with a sort of pity. 

iSTow, my dear friend, either relinquish 
the controversy or fit yourself for it. 
Kead the best authors upon the subjects 
in question half an hour before breakfast 
regularly. During the day think over 
what YOU have read. By establishino- 
this habit, your aggressive curiosity, 
which only serves to make your short- 
comings conspicuous, could be utilized as 
a powerful element in your intellectual 
growth. 

Yery Truly Yours, 

A. Y. 

Athens, Ind., 

July IOtii, 1931. 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM, 37 

P. S. 

I enclose a brief synopsis of the posi- 
tion of our society with regard to ultimate 
truth ; also a little diagram, to help you 
to understand the note attached. This, 
of course, is but a faint reflection of the 
larger and more definite comprehension 
of the subject, enjoyed by the learned 
men and women of our day. 



SYNOPSIS. 

Without going into a definition of life, 
which would necessitate an extended ex- 
amination of this aspect of general phe- 
nomena, sufiice it to say that Life is a 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 39 

Relation, having for its terms subjective 
and objective relations. 

That the Ultimate Relation is Motion, 
the terms of which are Space and Time. 

That all phenomena manifest this rela- 
tion in different degrees of complexity. 

In this Trinity of Realities, we have 
the source of all. 

The progress of knowledge has had its 
concomitant discoveries of the endless 
harmonies pervading all phenomena, and 
it is still the task of Science to unveil new 
harmonies, while it is that of Religion to 
form from this Anthem of the Universe 
higher and higher ideals of life, until the 
sweetness and grandeur of its strains com- 
pel the love and worship of mankind. 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 41 

Thus, we have before us the sublime 
mystery of the Unknowable, known to us 
m its ultimate relation, but unsuspected 
in its possibilities and unspeakable his- 
tory. 

The silent lapse of Time, unmeasured 
and undivided Space, join in rythmical 
Motion, with equal method in forming 
the life of a flower, and that of a system 
having for its units suns. And the destiny 
of each falls alike into the lap of Eternity, 
unregistered save by the progress it has 
made. 

Note.— It is probably unnecessary for 
me to say that the harmonizing of Ultimate 
Knowledge, which has enabled us to take 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 43 

this position, dates from the discovery 
that Force and Time are words which 
stand for the same reality, and that Mat- 
ter and Space are synonymous terms. 

The great Spencer, whose superb sys- 
tem has made him immortal, whose tire- 
less generalizations brought the world to 
its senses, and whose masterly classifica- 
tions of j)henomena laid the foundations 
of the definite culture enjoyed by our age, 
paved the way to this discovery. 

His description of the genesis of our 
idea of Space ; the oscillations of con- 
sciousness between coexistent points of 
resistance reached by primeval perception, 
and the previous knowledge that unoccu- 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 45 

piecl space is inconceivable, disclosed the 
identity of Matter, Coexistence and Space. 

His definition of the " deepest knowable 
cause," the " persistence of force," pointed 
to the fact that our idea of Force, when 
separated from that of Matter or Space, 
ceases to be an idea of Motion, and be- 
comes the subjective portrayal of abstract 
Sequence or Time. 

Since, therefore, a mind, fifty years ago 
climbed to a point of discovery with the 
aid of a single system, for at the time 
this discovery w^as made, Spencer's was 
the only system in existence which could 
lay any claim to both completeness and 
rational truth, how much more should 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 47 

you be able to comprehend the situation, 
when not only has the work been clone, 
but you have a choice of systems to assist 
you. 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 



49 



g The Infinite 
-3 OR Unlimited, 



S Matter 

o II 

:;:: Coexistence. 

-^ 
P-i 






Space. 



The Absolute 
OR Unconditioned, 

11 

Force 

II 

Sequence, 

1 
Time. 




Motion. 



The Ultimate Realities and their 
Relation. 

a 



THE STUDENT'S DREAM. 51 

The Doctor refolded the letter, and put- 
ting it into his pocket, said: ''In the 
language of the bench, Sir, I take the 
papers and reserve my decision. There 
is something very interesting in your case. 
In a word, it needs study. I am free 
to say, however, that tlius far I see no 
reason for you to diverge from the line 
of advice furnished by your friend the 
Squire. When you come to town again, 
Sir, I shall be happy to see you.'' 

With this the farmer withdrew; and 
scarcely had the door closed behind him, 
when the student heaved such a sigh of 
relief that he awoke, with the exclamation 
on his lips : " How very near I came to let- 
ting that farmer discover my ignorance." 



APPENDIX 



It would have been a contradiction to 
have written a preface to the foregoing, 
the manifest design of which is to lead 
the reader into the difficulties of meta- 
physics with as little warning as possible, 
so that he may judge for himself wheth- 
er the effort to master this much neglect- 
ed science is what so many have declared 
it to be — a hopeless undertaking. 

It may not be amiss, however, to add a 

few words, in order to carry further some 

(53) 



APPENDIX. 55 



of the thoughts Avhich the argument sug- 
gests. 

If Life is a relation between that of 
which life is ascribed and that which is 
external to it, the very word Eelation 
helps us to overcome the natural but er- 
roneous su]3position that there is an abso- 
lute dividing line between the mystic pha- 
ses of existence which fall under this 
broad title of life, and that which sur- 
rounds them. 

Spencer's definitions of life hinge upon the 
terms acljustmenf^ and " iii correspojidence 
with!'''\ In these definitions he postulates re- 



* "An adjustmeht of inner to outer relations." 

f'The definite combination of heterogeneous' changes, both 
simultaneous and successive, injcorrespondence ivith external co- 
existences and sequences. 



APPENDIX. 57 



The boundary line between life and its 
surroundings is quite apparent in organic 
life. It is the " limiting membrane " 
which Spenser calls the " first principle '^ 
of this kind of life. But when we seek 
for this boundary in super-organic life, it 

spectively an "inner" and "outer," an "in- 
ternal " and " external," and in the longer of 
the two he describes the nature of the subjec- 
tive changes in space and time, which, being 
related to the objective changes in space and 
time, fulfill the conditions of life. 

A glance at the position demonstrates the jus- 
tice of calling life a Relation; for, not only do 
the facts of the case justify the word, but the 
difference between the terms "adjustment" and 
" correspondence " is paramount to the differ- 
ence between adjustment and relation, and the 
longer of Spencer's definitions is conceded to be 

the more accurate throughout. 
H 



APPENDIX. 59 



becomes so indistinct that we are forced 
to the conclusion tliat it is relative in its 
nature, which means that it is in itself a 
relation, and perhaps the best designation 
for it is, the relation of differentiation. 
The degree of correspondence between this 
relation and that of life, I leave to future 
reflection to determine. 

The greatest difficulty which the stu- 
dent of psychology encounters is the ne- 
cessity of shaking off the common con- 
viction that there is something within us 
which is absolutely complete in itself: a 
point or boundary ^where the ego ceases 
and the non-ego begins. Not until we 
can master this weakness of perception — 
not until we can understand that all forms 



APPENDIX. 61 

of life perceived by us are incomplete in 
the sense that they are but parts of a whole, 
can we gain even an approximate idea of 
the infinite and absolute inter-dependence 
of all phenomena. 

When we examine the phenomena of 
human activities from this standpoint, the 
concrete dividing lines which apparently 
separate the physical, the mental, the mor- 
al and the spiritual, melt away. 

There is such a thing as unconscious or 
nascent knowledge. The difference be- 
tween it and conscious knowledge is 
vaguely indicated by the words capacity 
and acquirements. The development of 
the intelligence of some children is too 
startling not to have drawn general atten- 



APPENDIX. 63 



tion to this fact. Knowledge admits of 
every possible degree. The schools in 
which it is acquired are co-extensive with 
the time and space of life. From the in- 
fant's smile of recognition to the last 
glance which the old man casts upon this 
restless world, it is gathered and organ- 
ized in the mind. The sequences of men- 
tal growth are just as clearly maintained 
through the course of heredity as are those 
of physical structure, for a deep view of 
both shows tbat they are one. - 

That the degree of life attained by the 
human being corresponds with the amount 
of knowledge developed, is becoming an 
acknowledged fact. The exceptions to 
this rule disappear when we group lives 



APPENDIX. 65 



in space and time to allow for tlie irregu- 
larities of action and reaction. From the 
dawning sentiency of the primeval types 
of organic life, to the perceptions which 
are tlie fruit of patient life-times of 
mental relationing in our race, knowl- 
edge is the same in nature and differs but 
in degree. It is the establishment of re- 
lations between a life and the universe, 
and the degree of that life depends upon 
the degree of those relations. 

If life is knowledge, knowledge being 
a relation, the subjective and objective 
terms of which are the creature and tlie 
universe, perhaps it is not too soon in the 
course of these reflections to state that 

there is no absolute dividing line between 
I 



APPENDIX. 67 



the spiritual and the material, the heav- 
enly and the earthly, these being but the 
higher and lower aspects of life. Those 
who will take the trouble to follow out 
Spencer^s description of the gradual and 
intermingled growth of feelings, senti- 
ments and thought, will clearly perceive 
that religion in man, which is largely a 
sentiment, is elevated and purified in pro- 
portion to the true enlightenment of the 
mind. That it is one of the great reali- 
tiesof life, a form of nascent and conscious 
knowledge. The grand perspectives of 
the future which this sentiment supplies, 
are the chords of feeling which great 
truths awaken in us long before we have 
the power to understand them. The sum 



APPENDIX, 69 



of human knowledge formed from the sav- 
ings of the past and handed down through 
the mystic channels of sequential life, is 
the index of the progress of our race. 
There is something so real in this pro- 
gress that we are wooed into believing our- 
selves immortaL 

If we are forms of space and time, 
the indestructible and eternal joining in 
our existence; if the primordial sim- 
plicity of that existence is motion and 
its complexity, life, knowledge, progress, 
then it is as certain that there is a sequel 
to our lives as that there is a past. The 
farthest ends of the universe proclaim 
the ceaseless course of progress ; this 
great stream with its currents and coun- 



APPENDIX, 71 



ter-currents, sweeps on to the future, and 
as surely as we are floating upon its 
bosom, conscious of its motion, a sequel 
of the past, so surely shall we re-appear 
upon the surface of these waters in forms 
of higher life. 

If knowledge is the reality of life; if 
all the phases of our existence, from the 
physical to the spiritual, are forms of 
knowledge, the instructors of society 
hold a sacred trust. Upon their just 

appreciation of the great truths of life 
depends the real value of their instruc- 

If the "universal postulate" has been found; 
if that upon which every proposition relies for 
ultimate proof is the " inconceivableness of its 
negation," then that we are forms of space and 
time, and that motion is the deepest knowable 
caxise, is a safe position. 



APPENDIX 73 



tion, if not in the broadest sense its suc- 
cess or failure. 

Teachers, college professors, ministers 
and priests, are public people, discharging 
public trusts, and our right to criticise 
them depends entirely upon whether 
they avail themselves of the material at 
their command to do their duty. The 
widest and deepest information which the 
age affords, constitutes this material, and 
it is their duty to conform their instruc- 
tions, according to the measure of their 
ability, to this natural word of God. 

The sweet exemption from the toil of 

aggressive thought, which so many of 

them claim as the consequence of a belief 

in divinely imposed barriers to human 
J 



APPENDIX. 75 



perception, comes in painful contrast 
with that high achievement of the con- 
science, manifested by many of humbler 
acquirements, the feeling of obligation 
to understand life 

It is generally conceded that the wis- 
est men have always complained ihe most 
of their ignorance. There seem to be 
two distinct interpretations, however, of 
this limitation to the intelligence. The 
difference between these interpretations is 
to be found in the distance placed be- 
tween the present vantage ground of hu- 
man knowledge, and tliat impassable 
boundary prescribed by the conditions of 
life. 

One school offers to carry its pupils to 



APPENDIX. 77 



the highest stages of culture, but warns 
them that they must depend upon super- 
natural revelation for their ultimate ideas. 
The other regards the highest possible 
intellectual attainments of to-day as but 
the beginning of what the future prom- 
ises, but declares that even at the present 
stage of intellectual progress, it is possible 
to form a plan of thought which is co-ex- 
tensive with the natural boundaries of 
perception. That the elaboration of this 
plan is the work of the future, and that 
its growth toward perfection is part of 
the progress of our race. Which of these 
two positions constitutes the most rational 
interpretation of ignorance, I leave it 
to the reader to discern. 



APPENDIX. 79 



If any one were to offer condolence to 
our leading college presidents and divines, 
on account of the weight of ignorance un- 
der which these gentlemen toil, it is pos- 
sible that the proffered sympathy would fail 
of that ready appreciation which an unin- 
itiated person might expect. These in- 
structors of the people, who formulate the 
thought and therefore the principles of 
society, are not apparently suffering from 
any particular remorse on account of the 
inefficiency of the means which they are 
supplying to their fellow men, of meeting 
the difficulties and dan2:ers of life. 

Would not a keener appreciation of the 
nature of ignorance widen their perspec- 
tives of available truth, and lessen their 



APPENDIX. 81 

responsibility for the failures and sorrows 
of life, which it is their mission to allevi- 
ate? 

IIcis not tlie time come when it is the 
right and duty of the religious to criticise 
religion ? How many men and women are 
there in our land wliose lives enable them 
to stand upon their faith in God, and re- 
pel the anathema of atheist and infidel 
with scorn, while they expose the treason 
to true religion, of which so many of the 
ordained and faithful are guilty ? This 
treason consists in suppressing the under- 
standing by teaching superstition. 

No one who has made a serious study 
of morality, can doubt that it is, not only 
injudicious but wrong to deprive people 



APPENDIX. 83 



of that inlierited feeling of obligation to 
do right whicli in our race is inseparable 
from some degree of religious faith. The 
only thing which can lessen our depend- 
ence upon this feeling, is an appreciation 
of the effects of conduct, and an education 
of the higher sympathies, which amount 
in themselves to the most exalted attain- 
ments of the human mind. Appreciating 
these truths, can any one name an ac- 
quaintance who is independent of the 
saving influence of religion, who would 
not be benefited in some deorree bv kneel- 
ing in spirit before the Great Unknowa- 
ble, and joining occasionally, from how- 
ever high a plane, in that wairship which 
is the common impulse of mankind? Are 



APPENDIX. 85 



there any so wise and good that they can- 
not feel a sympathy with the humblest 
and most ignorant human being who sup- 
plicates a Deity for help to lead a better 
life? Such arguments as these are all 
that religion requires to commend it to 
those who have the true interest of their 
race at heart. 

Conceding that religion is necessary 
to assist us to live as we should, no one 
will deny that it is necessary to adjust 
religion to the intelligence of those whom 
it is intended to govern. This adjust- 
ment is going on unobtrusively, but none 
the less surely, and those who look deep- 
ly into the actions and re-actions which 
mark its course, will recognize the fallacy 



APPENDIX. 8T 



of eocouraging darkness as a means of 
doing good. 

Young men and women are growing 
up all over our land who are in posses- 
sion of facts whicli, if construed by the 
same methods of reasoning which enable 
them to maintain their standing as intelli- 
gent people, would shake to the very 
center the antiquated theologies which 
are so persistently offered them. 

Does any one suppose that the untruths 
of religion are essential to its success ? 
To believe this would be to shut the eyes 
to the real strength which has enabled 
the church to withstand for ages the 
assaults of those who in their zeal to 
criticise, failed to perceive its usefulness. 



APPENDIX. 89 



Are the attributes of God less faith- 
fully portrayed by the wonders of evolu- 
tion than by the cosmogony of the book 
of Genesis ? Is the world any the less 
a world because it was thrown off from 
the sun, and required untold ages to cool, 
than if it had been called into the very 
questionable state of perfection which 
Moses describes, during the uncertain 
period which elapsed between Sunday 
morning and Friday night ? Is our debt 
to God for existence less manifest in trac- 
ing the patient sequences of organic life 
to our present structure, than in supposing 
that the ignorance and frailties of six 
thousand years ago were selected as a 

starting point for the evolution of our 
L 



APPENDIX. 91 



race ? Pity it were indeed had religion 
to depend upon such positions as these for 
its usefulness and truth. 

It may be asked, what theology would 
you oifer in place of that which you find 
fault with? The reply is this: The chief 
feature of progress is specilization. In 
olden times the people looked to their 
priests for all knowledge. To use a famil- 
iar illustration, the Old Testament is a 
selection from a collection of writings 
which was to the Jews their entire litera- 
ture. It comprised their civil and relig- 
ious law, their history, biography, cos- 
mogony, philosophy and theology. In 
our age whole libraries are content to de- 
vote their shelves to any one of these spe- 



APPENDIX. 93 



cialties. That which stands for religion, 
to-day, is not the history and science 
which was a part of it in the "past, but 
that tendency to do justice to others which 
accompanies the reverence of an unknown 
and almighty power : The idealization 
of love of our fellow-men, which is inci- 
dent to the love of God. The power of 
religion does not lie in its interpretation 
of the universe, but in the fact that it rep- 
resents the chief need of man, an aspira- 
tion for a higher life. 

The power which brought us into 
being, and to which we confide our 
destiny, is what men call God. The 
colors in which we paint the Great 
Unknowable are indicative of the height to 



APPENDIX. 96 



which our ideas of the unchangeable and 
eternal have attained. Those who would 
deprive this highest conception of the 
warmth and glow of human attributes, 
should remember that in this garb alone 
is it visible to the multitude as yet. 

The conflict is not between science and 
religion, bnt between certain scientists and 
priests. The scientist who joins in this 
conflict, should remember that it might 
require a great deal to make him relig- 
ious, and the priest who answers him 
might be convinced that at least an equal 
effort on his part w^ould be necessary to 
make him scientific. 

The true philosopher who has been the 
peace- maker of all ages, should endeavor 



APPENDIX. 97 



to join the hands of these respective cham- 
pions of progress and purity, and remind 
them that their callings were once united 
in the life of the monk in his cell, who, 
unencouraged by the world, worshipped 
his God and toiled to acquire knowledge; 
that in gratitude for the patience and de- 
votion of these good men of old, they 
should endeavor to respect and appreciate 
the truths which each possess, and for the 
sake of humanity, live and work in unison 

and peace. 
M 



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